Elections board shifts Lower Oxford polls

WEST CHESTER — The Chester County Board of Elections on Wednesday revisited an old controversy — voting at Lincoln University — and hashed out its response to a new one — the blocking of the state’s Voter ID law.

The board, consisting of the county’s three elected commissioners, voted unanimously to relocate the polling place for the Lower Oxford East precinct from the Manuel Rivera Gymnasium on the Lincoln campus to the university’s new International Cultural Center.

The new center is more accessible for handicapped and elderly voters and is easier to get to from off campus than the gymnasium, explained James Forsythe, the county’s director of voter services, in proposing the switch.

“It is better for everyone,” Forsythe said.

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The county had to be cautious in making the change because it remains under the jurisdiction of federal courts stemming from a lawsuit filed by voters claiming the commissioners had discriminated against voters in 2008 by refusing to move the precinct polling place from a small, cramped off-campus community center to the university, one of the nation’s historically black colleges.

Voters waited for hours in long lines during the presidential election that saw Barack Obama elected. In 2010, the county was forced under the terms of a court settlement to move the polling place to the school’s gymnasium.

Forsythe, in response to questions from board members, said that voters coming from off campus to cast their ballots at the new polling place would not have to climb the two sets of steps that lead to the gymnasium. Instead, they could be dropped off directly in front of the center’s front entrance.

Although he said that the gymnasium had slightly larger facilities to handle any overflow crowds on Election Day, Forsythe said the center would have adequate space to handle the anticipated lines of voters, some of them casting ballots for the first time.

The center is also accessible not just from Old Baltimore Pike as it runs along the front of the Lincoln campus, but also from nearby Elkdale Road, noted board Chairman Terence Farrell, a resident of the township.

Those voters who are registered in Lower Oxford East will be notified of the polling place change by mail, the board decided — even those who have moved since the last presidential election.

Forsythe said that 12 signs pointing voters to the new polling place would be erected prior to Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 6.

In regard to the Voter ID law that a state Commonwealth Court judge on Tuesday put a hold on, the board discussed what impact that would have on the process of voting in the coming General Election. It is the final scheduled meeting of the board before the election.

Forsythe said that although two training sessions on the new law had been conducted, he had called off further such meetings for the time being, mindful that the Tuesday decision could still be appealed to the state Supreme Court. Poll workers were advised to check the Voter Services website for updates on the Voter ID law and the now-blocked requirements, he said.

Board member Kathi Cozzone noted the decision allows poll workers to ask voters for photo ID, but that it is not required to cast a ballot. Those who might mistakenly be told they need IDs could cast a provisional ballot, or get help in casting the ballot from one of the partisan poll workers on site, she advised.

The members agreed that first-time voters would still be required to show an ID, but that no others would.

In response to a question from Eric Gerst, a county Democratic Party solicitor, commissioner Ryan Costello said he was uncertain whether the county could send out information to registered voters telling them they did not need photo IDs. The law will presumably be put in place in 2013, he said.

Forsythe said his office had already begun processing requests for absentee ballots for the November election, getting 7,518 requests for such ballots and sending out 4,600 as of Tuesday.

The board members, as well as Gerst, complimented Forsythe, his staff, and the poll workers for the work they had done so far to make what promised to be a complex election run smoothly.

“They don’t do it for the money,” Costello said of the poll workers. “And without them we would not have democracy working in this county.”